INHERITANCE (PART ONE: MOTHER – Chapter 2 – “Irregular”)

JUNE 4, 2023 – When you’re a kid, it’s the random, passing experience of little apparent consequence that can leave a lasting impression about a person. One such experience with Mother occurred for me on a warm, sunny, summer afternoon before I was school age. With her small-boned arms, Mother turned hard on the wheel of the gray, two-door, 1939 Plymouth, and we successfully rounded the corner from busy Ferry Street onto quiet Rice Street.  That’s where we lived—on Rice at the far end down by the beach on the Mississippi in the old river town of Anoka, Minnesota.  We were returning home after running errands at Jensen’s Variety Store, the Ben Franklin across the street from the Variety Store (for the things that Jensen’s didn’t have in stock), and Peterson’s Shoes where Mother bought a new pair of sandals.

As the old humped-back car floated down Rice, I ran my hand along the short-haired, light-brown upholstery on the inside of the passenger door.  It had an interesting feel to it, like the back of my head after a haircut, and for whatever reason, which isn’t much of a reason for a four-year old mind, I thought I’d try out the taste. Even the concept of child car-seats was a thing of the distant future, and Mother made no attempt to stop me from sliding down onto the floor and—here’s the really weird part—licking, yes, licking, the upholstery. So there I was, licking the door, as Mother pulled up alongside the curb in the shade of the huge bur oak tree in front of our house.

“What are you doing?” she asked.  I remember her tone.  It was devoid of anything negative, and I discerned a genuine interest on her part in what I was up to.

“I’m tasting the fuzzy stuff on the door,” I said.  Then a truly amazing thing occurred.  Mother opened her door, alighted from the car, stooped down and licked the side of her door.  I looked at her black, curly hair as her head moved and down, and I saw the full body of her tongue moving vigorously over a swath of “fuzzy stuff.” Two cars drove by and had to swing wide to avoid her.

“You’re right.  It does taste good.”  And so together, we kept licking ‘the fuzz on the door’ for what to me was a pleasingly long time.

Shortly after that, I had another experience, which also made a lasting impression on me as to Mother’s willingness to see what I saw, as well as taste what I tasted.  For dessert one hot summer evening, Mother had served each of us half a grapefruit in a dark, plastic soup bowl. After I had eaten the segments, Dad reached over and squeezed the remaining juice into my bowl.

“Go ahead. Drink up,” he said.  I lifted the bowl to my mouth and slurped away until it was empty.  As I drew the bowl away from my face, I saw across the shiny bottom, distorted reflections of my face, the windows behind me, and the light fixture suspended from the ceiling.  Only I didn’t ‘see’ these things, but rather, imagined that I was seeing a magical place, a mansion with upper and lower porches, surrounded by thick vegetation and inhabited by mysterious people.  I set the bowl down on the table and continued to stare into it to watch the scene develop further.

“What are you looking at?” Mother asked.

“I’m looking at a big house with porches and trees and lots of leaves and I think maybe someone lives there but I don’t know who and I want to see them come out.”  Mother asked to see the bowl.  I pushed it toward her, and she pulled it close to her and peered into its shiny bottom.

“Oh, yes, ah ha! I see it too!” she said.  “You want to see it, girls?” she asked my two older sisters.  They didn’t want to see.  Their imaginations were much sharper than mine, but in that particular instance, it was more fun for them to make fun of me.  But it meant very much to me that Mother not only could see but wanted to see what I saw.

As things turned out, my ideas would get a lot weirder than the notion that car door fuzz might taste good or that a magical place existed in the bottom of a grapefruit bowl, and if family history is any guide, my ideas and actions are bound to get weirder with age. But if most any four-year old unwittingly says or does weird things, what made an indelible impression on me way back on those two lazy, summer days was that my mother could get right down on my level, see and even taste my world exactly as I was experiencing it and actively embrace it without typical, adult-like disapproval or inhibition. And thus, I came to see my mother in different light from all the other adults in my life.

Only much later would social norms cause me to view Mother as odd. But not as incorrigibly odd as her brother would actually become. “Odd,” as it turned out, ran in the family.

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© 2023 by Eric Nilsson